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LA - William Husser, 39, Covington, 29 December 2010

This man went missing from work release and normally I'd scroll past a story like that when searching MSM for new cases because the person is not missing, they're running. In this case, though, it didn't seem likely a person who wound up on work release at age 39 would have the wherewithal to stay on the lam for four years and he was just added to NamUs this week, so I took a closer look.

For months, Tanya Husser left the doors and windows of her Mandeville home unlocked night and day in hopes that her brother, who authorities say escaped from a Covington work-release facility in late 2010, would show up and end her worrying. But Billy Husser never appeared at her door and never called any of his relatives.

In the 3 ½ years since the inmate vanished from the Northshore Workforce facility, investigators told the family, there’s been no recorded activity on his credit cards or any use of his Social Security number...

His sister also has trouble understanding how he could have left the work-release facility without anyone noticing. When she visited him at the facility, she said, alarms would go off if anyone even touched a side door.

Tanya Husser said she tries to look deep into the face of every homeless person she passes with a little bit of hope and dread. She wonders if each and every one might be her brother, William 'Billy' Husser... She said Billy struggled with depression and a drinking problem...

A St Tammany judge revoked Billy Husser's probation in January 2010. He was on probation after his third DWI conviction. By December, Billy Husser was gone... According to the La. Department of Corrections, he only had a few months left, with a release date in May 2010.

Tanya said she last spoke to him the afternoon before he disappeared while he was at his work release job at Heavenly Ham. "He called me while he was there and wanted cigarettes and I couldn't leave my job to bring him cigarettes and that was the last time I ever heard Billy," she said.

What she says in both articles rings true, very much how family members of other missing people describe their own experience of this kind of loss and having no answers. I don't get any sense that his family might be covering for him, that they're helping him avoid going back and facing whatever the consequences may be. On the other hand, suicide does sound like a possibility, or some other non-criminal death by misadventure if Billy did manage to get himself out. Or maybe someone else at the program had a beef against him. Whatever the case, it doesn't sound likely that he's still living.

Another little bit from that second link, sounds ominous:

There's no record of the media or the public ever being notified about Husser's escape, something that was standard practice for the St Tammany Sheriff's Office... Tanya Husser said she believes a lack of oversight both of North Shore Workforce and of the inmates is what led to her brother's long-term disappearance. "Sometimes we were told just leave it alone by people that worked in there," Tanya said.

The program was shut down last March after another inmate escaped and kidnapped his former girlfriend. Many ongoing problems at the facility even before that, apparently.

Also if the program was having issues and on the verge of being shut down if another incident occurred, this could be an inside cover up. Prisoner found dead from something that was preventable (suicide, beaten by inmate or guard, dehydration while working etc) so they decided to make it look like he disappeared.

Also if the program was having issues and on the verge of being shut down if another incident occurred, this could be an inside cover up. Prisoner found dead from something that was preventable (suicide, beaten by inmate or guard, dehydration while working etc) so they decided to make it look like he disappeared.

I was thinking the same thing, lovinlife.

The world is full of monsters with friendly faces and angels full of scars. ~ Unknown

It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it. ~ Aristotle

The difference between fiction and reality? Fiction has to make sense.